Ink and Blood
by Tea for Lupin
Summary: Those times Dwalin gets a tattoo because he's just killed someone. Inspired by the work 'Touch' by Thorinsmut on AO3 - CHECK IT OUT. Trigger warnings: mentions of/depictions of violence, interrogation, torture, post-traumatic stress. Please heed.
1. Chapter 1

The first tattoo he got before he was even of age, and a poor job it was, but he would not ask his father for the money for a better one; so he gritted his teeth and glared as the needle bit into him, bleeding dark ink beneath his skin.

Thorin called him an idiot, and not even that politely. Dwalin did not give him a friendly punch in return for the insult, as he would have before; his hand hurt still from the inking, true, but he also knew, now, of what deeds those hands were capable. Thorin raised his eyebrows at his friend's new-found restraint, but made no comment, and let him be.

Dwalin took to sparring on his own; pounding his fists and his fury into leather bags, and then into walls and trees, things that could bear the brunt of his fearsome strength - or if they could not, would be no loss themselves.

After a few days Thorin tracked him down. He handed Dwalin a flask of ale and a honey cake, and pointed to the nearest rock. 'Sit.' Dwalin sat, sullenly, not because Thorin was his prince but because he was his friend. He swallowed some ale and half the honey cake, passing the remainder to Thorin. The prince frowned over Dwalin's bloodied knuckles.

'You need to tend to these cuts, my friend.'

Dwalin scowled, and drew his hand back, folding his arms tight over his chest. 'What's the point?'

The younger dwarf shot him a piercing glance. 'Would you treat an axe or any other weapon with so little care? A tool uncared for - '

'- loses its edge, aye, I know. All right.' Dwalin snorted and shook his head, taking another swig from the flask and passing it to Thorin, who drank in his turn. The light was fading around them and lamps were being lit in the windows of the mountain. They sat in silence for a time.

'It was an accident,' Dwalin said softly, at last. He did not look at his companion, staring instead at the word tattooed on the back of his right hand, tracing it with the fingers of his left, but he could feel Thorin's gaze upon him.

'Was it?' There was no judgement in Thorin's voice; it was a simple question, and Dwalin was grateful for it.

'Aye.'

'You were not unprovoked,' Thorin said, 'and you were acting in the defense of someone who could not defend themselves.'

'Aye. But he could not have truly harmed me, knives or no. I was the better fighter... And I lost control, and his neck broke in my hands like a wafer of cram.'

Thorin was frowning. 'Your brother is a great warrior in the royal retinue and you yourself will begin training for the guard in a little over a year. We are not a people made for peace, Dwalin.'

'You do not _understand_.' Dwalin rose to his feet, crossing his arms again and glaring down at Thorin. 'Do you not know the tales of the horsemasters, who go mad with a battle lust that will see them kill their dearest friends when the fell mood is on them? It is the same with me. I _felt_ it, Thorin.' And for the first time, for a single moment, Thorin saw fear on Dwalin's face. 'I still feel it; like a beast sleeping only lightly.' And he laughed, but there was no joy in the sound.

'Do you think I do not know that feeling?' Thorin said quietly. He rose also, dark hair and dark tunic all but invisible against the night, but his eyes shone. 'Not for blood and battle, but for gold?'

The moon was not yet risen and the air was growing chill; behind them the mountain waited, the lamps shining like captive stars. Thorin sighed and clapped a hand on Dwalin's shoulder. 'Come, _amradûn_,' he said, and from his lips the word was as gentle as it could be made. 'Let us take our beasts, and go home.'

* * *

_amradûn _- 'death-man', the closest Khuzdûl I could find to 'killer'. 


	2. Chapter 2

Dwalin fought himself out from under the furs and blankets with a bellow.

Balin was there beside him, hands cool against his fever-hot skin, murmuring the soothing words Dwalin could not yet take in. 'It's all right, brother, it's all right. Dreaming again, it is only smoke and glass, but you're a Dwarf with bones like mountains, you're stronger than these shadows...'

With a half-sob Dwalin tore himself away from the memories of Azanulbizar that haunted his sleep, gripping his brother's arm as hard as he dared, anchoring himself in the night. 'Aye, _nadadel_, that's right, wake up now.' Balin pressed a stone mug into Dwalin's hands and set a blanket about the bigger Dwarf's shoulders; he had begun to shiver as his soaked undershirt turned clammy against his skin. Dwalin drank the water gratefully.

'The same?' his older brother asked, seating himself at the foot of the bed.

Dwalin set the mug on the floor and passed a hand over his eyes. 'Aye.' He could not muster a scowl, not tonight. 'Will it ever stop, Balin?'

Diplomatic though he always was, Balin never shirked the truth, nor dressed it in a fair cloak to be revealed in its ugliness later. He stroked his beard, and sighed. 'I cannot say, Dwalin. For some, the _ugrûd-amab_ passes quickly, for others, it lingers. No one knows why it should be so.'

Their eyes met, and after a moment, Balin added, 'Some say, though, that the dreams lose their power more quickly when they are put into words, and not kept secret.'

Dwalin broke his gaze away and lay back again, fixing his eyes on the ceiling and lacing his fingers behind his head. 'There is nothing to say,' he growled. 'It was Azanulbizar. You know how it was; you were _there_.'

Yes, Balin had been there beside him, both of them fighting alongside their father until he fell; then Dwalin had seen the tears mingle with the grime and sweat on Balin's face as the older Dwarf struck the head from the Orc who had slain Fundin. And Dwalin's vision had grown dark, so that it seemed night had fallen about them, but his enemies' eyes glittered like dark gems lit by firelight, and their teeth were bared. In that moment with the air liquid like blood Dwalin at last unleashed the battle beast inside him, casting away his shield the better to wield his axes, and none could stand before him; he was an avalanche of metal and blades.

But when the battle was at last over each of the few survivors at first walked alone amongst the unnumbered dead, not yet ready to look for comfort in the living, seeking only to understand their loss, and Dwalin came to his knees beside the body of Gordur, another member of the royal guard. He was not someone Dwalin had known well, but he was a shield-brother nonetheless in a field of fallen Dwarves whose names Dwalin did not know, and he stretched out his hand to close Gordur's eyes.

But Gordur was breathing yet, short and shallow, and he gasped as Dwalin slid an arm beneath his shoulders, holding him like a child.

'Where are you hurt?' There was blood in Gordur's mouth, never a good sign, but perhaps it was only broken teeth. Perhaps. 'Tell me, and I will get help for you.'

'No.' Gordur gritted out the word with difficulty. 'No, Dwalin, I - my back, my back is broken.' He tried to cough, but could only choke, a terrified look on his reddening face. Swiftly and as gently as he could Dwalin turned Gordur's head and used his fingers to clean the bloody mucus from his mouth. When he could breathe again Gordur said, almost inaudible, 'End this for me now, Dwalin, please.'

Dwalin stared at him. 'End it?'

'_Please._' Now the Dwarf's face and voice were fierce again, only his eyes still pleading and afraid. 'Don't let them take me from this place, Dwalin, or try to mend me. My back is _broken_, and where should I go for help? We have no home, I have no kin - all lost to the dragon, or the dragon-sickness, or lying somewhere in this fucking _field_ - Give me the swift death I have earned, my friend, not a slow passing in indignity.'

And Dwalin understood, in his very heart he understood, because he knew that in Gordur's place he would ask for the same kindness. And it was not a hard thing, with his strength and his killer's hands, to cradle Gordur's head gently and place a kiss on the broken Dwarf's forehead as he snapped his neck, and no one saw.

Balin was not beside him, then. Nor was he there when Dwalin had Gordur's name tattooed, with runes very small and very black, into the skin between the fingers of his left hand. They were secret, hardly to be seen; but somehow, once it was done, the _ugrûd-amab_ did grow less.

* * *

_nadadel_ - brother of all brothers  
_ugrûd-amab_ - fear dream

I'm doing my best with the Khuzdûl... Apologies if it's not quite right (but points for trying, yeah?)

This chapter is well beyond what I normally write in terms of violence and unpleasantness, so I hope it comes across okay, but I have to go where my (bearded, tattooed, axe-wielding) muse leads.


	3. Chapter 3

The tattoo was inked deep and dark into his wrists, so that he could neither put on nor take off his knuckle dusters without seeing it, and it said simply, _hold back._

Dwalin walked of out the cell without looking back, because what was there to see?

Rumour went on wings rather than feet, it was said, and this seemed to be the truth, for his fellow guards stepped aside for him a bit more smartly, and prisoners moved a bit further back in their cells to avoid his attention, and everywhere eyes turned away from him as he passed.

The summons came a little later than he expected, but it came nevertheless.

'How exactly do you suppose we get the information we need from a _dead_ criminal, Dwalin?' Korin, Captain of the Belegost Guard, growled at him.

Dwalin shrugged, and glared back at her. 'One less back on the streets.'

Korin's dark expression did not change. 'You're an interrogator, not an executioner. Don't make a habit of it.' She left the room, but Dwalin stayed there, unmoving, for a long time.

There was extra space around him now, filled with silence in his presence and whispers when he left, and in the weeks after he had killed the prisoner Dwalin drank alone in the evenings when his work for the day was done.

He had not meant to do it. He had not even been angry, and in any case he had learned long years before to keep his beast on its chain. He had been doing only what he was required to do: apply force to extract information. It was a different kind of mining, somewhat more bloody but no less fine a skill than that of the gem- and ore-masters who could play the music of taps and echoes so that the radiant secrets of the mountains poured out. A misjudged blow and a fortune could be lost, or a life.

Or a life. He had misjudged that blow, for no reason other than carelessness, and the side of the Dwarf's already-bloodied face had crumpled like tin under the hammer and she had sagged in her chains, head hanging down at an angle he knew too well.

His usual sparring partners now made excuses. On his own Dwalin trained harder and more frequently than ever: drill after drill with axes and knives and his own knuckle-dustered hands. The time was coming when he would have to face a dragon beside his king, and in the meantime this was the best solution he had to fill the emptiness around him.

Late one evening, when a powerful blow struck him on the back of his head, Dwalin reeled around to find Thorin there, a wooden practice sword in his hands.

'Well, that was a fine way of letting me know you're back.' Dwalin rubbed the sore spot; there would be a bruise in his not too distant future.

Thorin smiled, and that was too rare a sight these days. 'May I join you?'

Dwalin hesitated. Thorin was a match for him, true; a little smaller, a touch lighter on his feet, and his strength was that of a Dwarf who could forge a sword as well as wield one. But he was Dwalin's oldest friend - and more than that, his king.

'I was just about to finish,' he said.

'That's not true.'

Dwalin shrugged, and leant on his axe.

'I've heard what happened.' Thorin gave Dwalin an appraising look. 'Is that why you're here alone?'

Dwalin's smile was grim and did not make it to his eyes. 'Aye, maybe.'

'Then it's time you had a sparring partner again.' And swift as lightning Thorin swung the wooden sword, cracking it across Dwalin's knees and spinning round to land it on his back, and the bigger Dwarf grunted, turning and parrying the next blow with the haft of his axe.

'It's a bad idea, Thorin. Leave it be.'

Thorin stepped back and slammed the sword into Dwalin's side. 'You don't _need_ to hold back with me, my friend.' Another blow. 'And you'd better not, if you want to have ribs tomorrow.'

'_Thorin_ -'

'_Don't hold back._'

'Hammer and coals -'

But Thorin would give him no quarter, and in the end Dwalin did not hold back - because, after all, he did not really want to report to the guard room the next day with broken ribs. He did not hold back, and Thorin was _all right,_ he was _laughing_, and when they had finished sparring Dwalin felt more relaxed than he had for weeks.

Yet he could not afford to forget.

The tattoo was inked deep and dark into his wrists, so that he could neither put on nor take off his knuckle dusters without seeing it, and it said simply, _hold back._

FIN


End file.
